President Donald Trump on Wednesday called his own administration a "rigged system" and threatened to "get involved" in a dispute between the Justice Department and Congress over the release of documents.
Trump appeared to be responding to frustrations from conservative Republicans that the Justice Department has not turned over documents related to controversial topics, including surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
The president has been open about his frustrations with the Justice Department over its handling of the special counsel's Russia investigation.
Trump's timing also appeared to be linked to Fox News contributor and former congressman Jason Chaffetz's morning comments about the DOJ and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's assertion that he won't be "extorted" by Congress.
At issue there: The DOJ's documents detailing the FBI's investigation into the now closed case of Hillary Clinton's private email server.
House Republican lawmakers have threatened impeachment if Rosenstein and the DOJ don't hand over the documents they seek, unredacted.
Rosenstein on Tuesday said, bring it on.
"I can tell you that there have been people who have been making threats, privately and publicly, against me for quite some time," Rosenstein said. "I think they should understand by now the Department of Justice is not gonna be extorted."
Chaffetz, former chairman of the House Oversight Committee, wasn't having it Wednesday.
"You can impeach a civil officer. For (Rosenstein) to say Congress is going to extort him by exercising their constitutional responsibility means to me he needs to go brush up on the Constitution," Chaffetz said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom."
The Justice Department does not "want to provide the documents. This deep state doesn't want to be exposed. So when (Rosenstein) thumbs his nose at Congress, he thumbs it at the American people," Chaffetz said.
Material from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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